Boards

Ergh. I just spoke to my sister, and she told me that she's booked a trip to New York. Bit jealous, I told my friend, and he said "That's vulgar. Haiti."
Now I'm left feeling guilty. Not just about my sister, but about everything. Why the hell should I be so lucky to have everything that I do? What am i meant to do?
It's not a new feeling, I mean, it's a pretty big ethical problem all the time, what with some places having such a higher standard of living than others.
I guess what I'm asking is: Do you feel guilty about being so lucky? What do you do about it?

Especially considering that my family immigrated from Ghana. it makes me realizes that had things not gone their way, i could be in Ghana. Despite the fact that i would be in (somewhat) decent shape there, i most certaintly would not have the luxuries that i have now.

It's not as if I'm going around personally ruining each and everyone of their lives. But yeah, sometimes people get jealous over stupid things, but it's human nature and the way we are programmed so you can't help it.

If we ruled our lives by saying that we can never do anything because someone somewhere is worse off than us, we would never do anything. The important thing is that we care about this stuff (and absolutely donate something if you can afford it, or in my case, when I couldn't - this was a rare occasion to break out the credit card)... BUT you have to carry on in life too. That's not purely a selfish thing - you're much better at helping out those around you (near and far) if you're looking after yourself in the first place.

Stop feeling guilty about shit you had nothing to do with. New Orleans and Asia and Haiti, the oil spills and the Third World deficit...you didn't cause them. If you can help then fine, go for it, help. But stop listening to morons and feeling your emotions the way dickhead friends say you should feel them.

about this guy coming across as a total knob. Not so much because of his point, whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, but because anyone who thinks one word can constitute an argument = total knob. The only people worse are those who think concluding with "Enough said" somehow adds further weight to it.

I think people in Britain could rightly feel guility everyday of our lives. As I read the post, this is not about one earthquake, it's about us having so much more than most of the World.
We've got most of our wealth from fucking over the world, firstly through the colonies and now through "trade".
Not only could we feel guilty about fucking over other people, but we are also destroying plants and animals as we alter the climate and carve up the environment for our own wants.
What can we do? Carry on living by whatever morale code we can justify to ourselves.

Clearly I have not exempted myself from this. I live by my own standards, which I think are more morally sound than most in this country, but I could do shit loads more.
The point about the computer is stupid, seeing as you have no idea what I am doing with it. Despite using power, computers have the ability to make life more efficient.

You can broadly separate the problems of the world into two distinct categories:

a) things you're not responsible for you can do nothing about
b) things you're at least partially responsible for and can do something about.

In the first category guilt is a pointless and inappropriate reaction. You aren't responsible, you can do nothing about it, so what would feeling guilty achieve?

In the second category guilt is a poor subtitute for actually taking appropriate action. Anybody who feels genuinely guilty about something but doesn't do everything they can to rectify the situation either

1) doesn't really feel that guilty
or
2) lacks the moral courage to follow-through on their actions.

So in neither case is guilt really a justifiable or productive response.

obviously the inbalanced quality of life between different groups of people isn't fair in a lot of cases but it's not something that I spend a long time thinking about, what's the point in everyone being miserable? If you're lucky enough to have the opportunity of an enjoyable life then make the most of it.

It's the decision-makers who have helped fuck over those countries. In the same way that I wouldn't be responsible if a member of my family or social circle committed a crime, I am not responsible for the shit that gets done by my country's elected leaders.

All of this "guilt" shit is beside the point anyway. We're talking about an event which, while horrible, is being accorded a response by the global community which is both moral and generous. It's not like we're doing nothing at all.

It was an earthquake, too. A natural disaster. It wasn't an invasion by a foreign power or an unjust bombing campaign or a terrorist atrocity. If anyone's to blame for the Haitian authorities ill-preparedness and inability to quake-proof their country, it's the succession of corrupt leaders - take a bow, Papa and Baby - for treating the Haitian economy like their personal bank account.

Guilty in the sense of not doing enough to help now, rather than being the cause it.

Also, to crudely sum up Singer's argument: suffering is bad therefore we should do what we can to stop it. how far away this suffering is should not matter.

My guilt lies in the fact I know I could be doing something, i.e. giving money, but I'm a big fat hypocrite in that although I completely agree with Singer, I've got no income coming and am feeling too poor to donate very much.

Of course you shouldn't feel guilty about Haiti or being born in such a lucky set of conditions. Firstly it's not your fault, secondly if you sold all your posessions and lived the life of a trappist monk from now on the amount of money raised would be a drop in the ocean compared to what's needed and thirdly guilt's a useless emotion even when something is your fault, much more so if it isn't.